I've read more than one post on a Revit forum complaining about text entry in Revit - and more than one smug head-up-their-own-ass response from a Revitbot about how 'Revit is a magical sparkle-fairy unicorn that doesn't have to include more than a rudimentary text editor because... did I mention sparkle-fairies and unicorns?
This kind of 'magical thinking' as I like to call it is a big part of the problem. When presented with a valid (often glaring) shortcoming in the Revit software , the average Revit Dick-Socket will start sputtering about 'well, it's not supposed to be drafting/word-processing/whatever software' instead of addressing the very pressing reality that this software is a lagged out, rigged together, mentally challenged clusterfuck of epic proportions.
I seriously would not give a single fuck if these douchebags and their smug fucking attitudes wanted to go suck the Revit dick all day long - as long as they weren't trying to drag everyone else down with them. For those that love Revit, and are productive with it - more power to you (although, unless you are just wiring up floors of vanilla office buildings, I'm calling you out as a fucking liar).
You've been able to convince, shame, or outright threaten a lot of people into converting to Revit-ligion (one of the greatest parts about a shit economy is that you can basically force employees to do whatever you fucking want them to do - up to and including making them work extra hours fighting with shitty software, but making them think that it's their inability to complete the project during normal hours is due to their own shortcomings, so they won't attempt to charge you for overtime.
You've ignored the complaints of poorly designed, pathetically coordinated, vastly over-budget projects because 'eventually all this hard work is going to pay off when Revit suddenly starts doing all of our work for us and rainbows shoot out of our asses'.
It's a sad state of affairs - one made worse by the knowledge that those responsible can't be forced to give even half of a fuck, aren't the ones being hung out to dry, and will probably continue to get away with this shit because people are too scared to speak up, and demand well-designed, intuitive, fast-running, production-minded software.
At least some people are.
For the rest of us, who are concerned with productivity, profit, low-stress, coordination, and (most importantly) presentation graphics - we need to be the ones to speak up. Ranting online, grumbling to ourselves in our offices, and getting off the occasional snarky comment just isn't going to cut it anymore.
We need to bring this battle to the enemy - and while that enemy might be stupid, slow, and incompetent, they are also well-funded, aren't scared to use propaganda tactics that would make a Nazi or Soviet era Russian blush, and feel no remorse for how many people are affected by their actions.
Even without Revit, these people would exist, and would be doing everything in their power to cut productivity, but with Revit, they have carte blanche to fuck everyone over, and then pretend to be powerless to do anything about it.
Fuck that, fuck them, and if you don't like what I'm saying - fuck you.
A Plain Text Editor
ReplyDeletePlain Text files
That's right, if you're writer on a budget, you don't need to spend any money buying expensive writing software or apps. Instead, you can use the text editor that comes free with your operating system.
Just open up Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on a Mac. I like plain text editors for writing something short quickly and easily, without thinking much about it. I wrote a blog post about the benefits of using plain text editors as writing software.
Use for: writing whatever, wherever
I've always been a big fan of notepad - I've used it for writing, coding, etc. over the years. I've never bought a piece of word processing software, but I've always had access to it (either at work, or older versions of Office, etc.). I ran across free 'Open Office' a few years back and used it almost exclusively - but now my wife gets Office 360 through her job, so now I can use it at home too.
ReplyDeleteThis particular rant about text editors isn't about that though - it's about embedded text editors inside other programs. Autocad has extremely powerful text editing tools that have been perfected over the last couple of decades.
The most imortant thing is that they work flawlessly - all the time. There are tools for simple single-line bits of text, more elaborate multi-line text for notes, and a whole plethora of tools for keynoting, tagging, etc.
Revit, on the other hand, has a broken, half-assed clusterfuck of nonsense that they have half-heartedly poked at, only to have it break older drawings when they are converted into newer versions.
If all I were doing is writing, I could do it in another program - but the work I do requires the skillful manipulation of text, tags, leaders, etc. resulting in accurate and legible floor plans, details, legends, and keynotes.
And like I said - it works, every single goddamned time.
A Plain Text Editor
ReplyDeletePlain Text files
That's right, if you're writer on a budget, you don't need to spend any money buying expensive writing software or apps. Instead, you can use the text editor that comes free with your operating system.
Just open up Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on a Mac. I like plain text editors for writing something short quickly and easily, without thinking much about it. I wrote a blog post about the benefits of using plain text editors as writing software.
Use for: writing whatever, wherever